The Waterfall

by Carla Neggers

  She was so convinced last night she almost marched down to his room to demand an explanation. But common sense intervened, and this morning her suspicions seemed a little more far-fetched. Not that Sebastian wouldn’t withhold information, but that he had anything to withhold. What could he possibly know that concerned her? Certainly nothing bad, not at the level he was used to. Assassinations, bombings, kidnappings, extortion. This was just someone trying to spook her.

  Pushing back the flood of questions, Lucy dashed into his bathroom for his shaving gear. She was struck by the intimacy of her chore. Sebastian must have known what she’d be handling. Maybe he was too out of it to care.

  “Sebastian is never too out of it,” she said out loud.

  That was his job. Staying alert, on task. Even, she thought, if he had managed to fall into Joshua Falls.

  She wished she could call her friends in Washington for the scuttlebutt on him. What did they know about his “sabbatical”? What rumors had they heard? But she didn’t dare, because her questions would give them something to gossip about, and it could get back to Jack.

  She stuffed everything into her car and walked over to the small building housing the front desk. The clerk was a no-nonsense woman in her sixties. She wouldn’t have been much help with any desperadoes hiding under Sebastian’s bed.

  The woman complained about her bad knee while she flipped through handwritten cards for the appropriate bill. “I hurt it last winter cleaning out Mother’s attic. It’s been a year since she died, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.” She found the right card and set it on the counter, adjusting her reading glasses. “The owner keeps threatening to computerize, but I don’t see the need myself. Well, I’ll be! Sebastian Redwing. Daisy Wheaton’s grandson?”

  “That’s right,” Lucy said. “Do you know him?”

  “Not since he was a boy. I don’t know if I’d recognize him now. He came to live with Daisy after his parents were killed. That was horrible. Just horrible. I’ll never forget it. That poor woman outliving her husband and her only child.” She shuddered. “I was just a little girl and didn’t really know what was going on when Joshua Wheaton died, but I’ve been afraid of waterfalls ever since. I’ve never even been to Joshua Falls.”

  “Really? They’re very beautiful.”

  She pursed her lips in disapproval. “I thought it was morbid to name the falls after him. If I get run over by a truck, I don’t want anyone naming the truck after me!”

  Lucy smiled. “I think it was to honor him because he saved a little boy from drowning.”

  “He was reckless. He didn’t think about his wife, his own little girl.”

  “Maybe not, but in that situation—I don’t know, it would be hard not to try to do something to help. I imagine Joshua thought he could handle the risks he was taking. You can’t stand by and watch a little boy drown, but you can’t be totally reckless, either. That’s suicide.”

  The clerk nodded grudgingly. “People do say Joshua knew what he was doing, and it was just one of those things. The conditions were worse than he expected, and there he was, committed, with no way out.”

  “Yes,” Lucy said, distracted, wondering if in a way that explained her situation with Sebastian. Committed, no way out.

  “Well, it’s a sad story. Mother said Daisy never really got over Joshua.”

  “They were friends?” Lucy asked. She was curious about Daisy Wheaton, whose spirit was so much a part of her life. But she’d never asked many questions of townspeople about her for fear of seeming too nosy, prying into the life of one of their own. And she’d never considered asking Sebastian.

  “They were in the quilting club together.” The older woman sighed wistfully, tears coming to her eyes. “But that was a long time ago. Mother was ninety-two when she died.”

  And her daughter missed her, Lucy thought, touched. Would her own children still miss their father when they were in their sixties, after all those years without him? They’d think about him, remember him. That much she knew.

  “What did you do with her quilts?” she asked suddenly.

  “I saved them, of course. I gave one to each of my children and grandchildren. What else would I do with them?”

  Sell them with your mother’s place, Lucy thought. That’s what Sebastian did. She didn’t think he’d saved even a single one of Daisy’s quilts.

  With all the memories and tragedies associated with Vermont, and specifically Joshua Falls, he could have been distracted yesterday, the landslide thus catching him by surprise. It could have been an accident, after all. Under the circumstances, how reliable a witness was he?

  Lucy paid his motel bill and thanked the clerk for her time. “I’m Lucy Swift, by the way. I bought Daisy Wheaton’s house from her grandson a few years ago.”

  “Yes! I’ve heard of you. You’ve got that adventure travel business, right?”

  “That’s right. I hope you’ll stop in one day. The house came with a bunch of Daisy’s quilts. I’d love to have you tell me about some of them.”

  “I’d be happy to. I’m Eileen, by the way—Eileen O’Reilly. I’ll take you up on your offer one of these days.”

  “Soon, I hope.”

  Lucy headed straight home. When she turned into her driveway, she stopped at the mailbox and stared down at Joshua Brook. It was wide and easy here, its water clear and coppery. Placid, beautiful. Soothing. She loved to sit on a rock on a warm afternoon and watch the water course over her feet. It was always cold, and even amidst a mid-summer dry spell, it had never gone dry.

  And yet upstream, these same waters had claimed Joshua Wheaton’s life and made his wife a widow. The Widow Daisy.

  The Widow Swift, Lucy thought again.

  She dumped Sebastian’s stuff in her bedroom and found him stretched out on a blanket in the shade of an old apple tree in the backyard. J.T. and Georgie were playing checkers on the far edge of the blanket. Lucy pushed aside any lingering thoughts of Sebastian’s motel room.

  “Boys,” she said, “would you mind getting me something cold to drink?”

  “Can we have something, too?” J.T. asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Milk shakes?”

  “Not right now. Just whatever’s in the fridge.”

  They scooted off. Sebastian eyed her, his head propped on a couple of pillows. “Madison’s in the barn. She’s pissed at me. Now she says I’m more like Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen.” He squinted up at Lucy. “Do you think I’m more Bogie than Eastwood?”

  “I think my daughter has an active imagination.”

  He sat up, wincing. In the midday light, she could see that his wounds, while unpleasant and painful, really were superficial and would heal quickly. He narrowed his eyes at her, again giving her that sense he could see into her soul.

  “What’s on your mind, Lucy Blacker?”

  He’d always called her Lucy Blacker, from the day they’d met. “Nothing.”

  She realized she was pacing, and stopped. She stared out at her garden. It was lush and healthy, and it had her stamp on it. Yet it still felt like Daisy’s garden. People in town thought of her as stepping into Daisy’s life. Exchanging an old widow for a young widow.

  Was that what Sebastian thought?

  Suddenly Lucy couldn’t breathe, and she knew he was watching her, trying to read her mind. Possibly succeeding.

  She turned to him. “Did Daisy ever go back to the falls?”

  She could see he knew what she meant. He didn’t react in any obvious way, just seemed to slide deeper inside himself. His past must have taught him that—to stay in control, bury his feelings, choose what he wanted someone else to see. The past three years had taught her similar skills.

  He shook his head. “No, never.”

  “The falls must not be an easy place for you to be.”

  “My grandfather died long before I was born. Daisy never liked me going up there, but she didn’t stop me, except in winter.” The unusual gray eyes
stayed on her.

  If he could read her mind, penetrate her soul, she didn’t have the slightest idea how to read him, get inside his soul. She wasn’t sure she wanted to.

  He added, enigmatically, “It’s a beautiful spot.”

  “Then you weren’t distracted yesterday?”

  He shrugged. “No, I was distracted.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  She groaned. “You know damn well what I mean.”

  “You’re fishing, Lucy. What else is on your mind?”

  “You didn’t come here just because of me.” She spoke without thinking, analyzing, debating. Enough already, she thought. She stepped closer to his blanket, knew that what her instincts were saying to her were right. “You had other reasons, too.”

  “Such as?”

  The man was maddening. “Why should I guess when you can just tell me?”

  He gave the smallest of smiles. “I don’t know, I like the idea of seeing how far-fetched your guesses are.”

  “Is that a yes, you do have other reasons for being here?”

  “You think too much.”

  And here she was, not thinking at all. She gave him another few seconds, but that was the end of it. Lucy crossed her arms on her chest, considered a moment. “Okay. Fine. Well, here’s how it is. From this point forward, you are to keep me informed of where you are and what you’re doing, what you know, what your plans are. This is my house, my town, my family—my life. Understood?”

  “Sure, Lucy.” He clasped his hands together behind his neck and settled back on the blanket. He shut his eyes and yawned, making himself comfortable. “By the way, your son cheats at checkers. When Georgie figures it out, there’ll be hell to pay.”

  Nine

  Sidney pressed both hands on Jack’s shoulders to keep him in his chair in the courtyard. “You sit,” she told him. “I’ll make the martinis.”

  He smiled up at her, could smell her fresh perfume as she stayed close behind him. She was so beautiful, so kind. “You don’t need to wait on me.”

  “This isn’t waiting on you.” She headed off toward the kitchen, laughing over her shoulder at him. “This is snapping you out of your funk. You have one chance—one martini—then I’m out of here, and you can wallow.”

  In another minute, Jack heard her humming, clinking glasses. His eyes welled with tears. She was such a good woman. Smart and decent, comfortable with herself. He wished he had the courage to tell her about Darren and the blackmail. About Colin. About how he’d sniped at Lucy for living in Vermont, as if somehow the blackmail, his loneliness, was her fault.

  But he couldn’t bring himself to tell anyone. It was as if speaking the details out loud made them real and true, unavoidable. He supposed he was still in denial, as the pop shrinks would say. Yet his silence ate at him, chewing away at his gut like an acid leak. Except for the day he’d stood over his son’s body, he’d never felt so isolated and alone, so goddamn helpless.

  Sidney blamed his work. His schedule was jammed with last-minute political jockeying before the August recess. He was using every ethical tactic he knew to garner support for legislation he and another two senators were sponsoring.

  To have it all end like this, he thought. He tried to be optimistic. He wanted desperately, horribly, to believe that Darren Mowery would give up his blackmail campaign without bleeding Jack completely dry or asking him to compromise his oath of office. He could only afford another ten or twenty thousand before someone started to notice, before someone talked. It could be anyone—a bank teller, his accountant. Word would get out, questions would be asked. What secrets was Senator Swift hiding? His political enemies would jump. The media would be overzealous in their watchdog role. Truth would mix with gossip and rumor, and the politics of personal destruction.

  And that was the best-case scenario. The worst was if Mowery asked Jack to compromise his oath of office, the ethics by which he’d tried his damnedest to live and work his entire adult life, even before he’d taken public office. Then, who knew what would happen.

  He was on his own. Sebastian Redwing hadn’t returned his call. Jack wished he hadn’t given in to impulse and contacted Redwing Associates. Plato had warned him Sebastian probably wouldn’t call back if Jack wasn’t willing to be more forthcoming. “Call me back if you want to talk details,” Plato said. “I’ll get word to him.”

  He’d refused to say where Sebastian was or to put Jack’s call through to him, and finally Jack hung up in frustration. Admitting he was the victim of blackmail had made him physically ill. What difference did the details make? It was Mowery. Sebastian knew Mowery’s tactics, had been Colin’s friend. The honorable course of action would be to go get the bastard and never mind the sordid details.

  So, here he was. Waiting.

  Sidney swung out from the kitchen with two martinis. He smiled. “I’ll make the next round.”

  “You’re on.” She sank onto a chair and tasted her handiwork. “Marvelous, if I do say so myself.” She raised her glass to him. “To love, friendship, the United States Senate, and getting out of this town in one piece.”

  Jack laughed. “Amen.” He had to agree, it was a superb martini. “Imagine, in just a few days, we’ll be sitting on a deck in Vermont sipping martinis and looking at nothing but trees.”

  Her dark eyes flashed. “We?”

  “You can sneak off for a week or so at least, can’t you?”

  “Yes, but—” She set her martini on the table. “I realize Lucy knows we’re seeing each other, but you and she and your grandchildren—it’s just been the five of you for the past three years.”

  “Lucy’s parents—”

  “Are in Costa Rica. Yes, I visited them in January. But you’re Colin’s father. You’re their only connection to him—and they’re the only family you have.”

  “They live in Vermont now,” Jack said, wincing at how bitter he sounded. “It’s not as if it’s been ‘just the five of us’ for the past three years.”

  “Ah,” Sidney said knowingly.

  He managed a smile. “’Ah’ what?”

  “You’re angry with Lucy for moving away. Jack, she’s not responsible for your happiness. She’s had to get on with life without Colin, just as you have. It’s different for you. Colin was your son, not your husband.”

  “I lost everyone, Sidney. Eleanor, Colin, my grandchildren.”

  “Your grandchildren are in Vermont. It’s not the end of the earth.” Sidney shook her head—so kind, so indulgent. She disagreed with him, but wouldn’t belittle him. “Oh, Jack. Jack, their moving isn’t a rejection of you any more than Lucy’s parents’ move to Costa Rica is a rejection of her.”

  “I know that intellectually, but in my gut—” He sighed. “Sidney, in my gut they rejected me.”

  “That must feel awful.”

  He smiled, rallying. “Thank God for you. Lucy likes you, you know.”

  “As a friend and a former colleague of sorts. I don’t know about as your lover. And,” she added seriously, “I’m not just talking about how Lucy would react having me in Vermont. I’m talking about you, too, Senator Jack Swift.”

  He frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “Of course, you don’t. You haven’t had a ‘girlfriend’ in forty years.”

  “Ouch.”

  Sidney leaned forward in her chair and brushed her fingertips across his chin. “Think hard, Jack, before you invite me to Vermont with your family. I like what we are together. I don’t want that to change.”

  “Why would it change?”

  “Just think, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  She laughed. “You are so thickheaded. But never mind.” She swept up her martini and took a big sip. “Whether it’s to Vermont or the beach, I’m getting out of the city for a few days. I love Washington, but summers do get trying.”

  With the martini, the quiet, steamy evening and Sidney’s gentle, intelligent company, Jack felt more comfortable. Whe
n it came to Washington, he understood what she meant. For all its problems, dangers and frustrations, he loved living and working here. Although Rhode Island was home, Washington was where he was at his best.

  He couldn’t imagine how Lucy lived in Vermont, no matter how beautiful. Was she at her best there? Or was she just hiding from reality? That, he could understand. He would do anything to hide from reality now, was trying his damnedest to get away with it. Losing Colin had been a terrible blow for all of them. But a short-lived frenzy over senatorial blackmail and a sordid affair could drive Lucy even farther away from her dead husband’s father.

  Sidney was right. Lucy, Madison and J.T. were his only family. He couldn’t act in haste.

  “Jack—oh, Jack.” Sidney smiled and pretended to knock on his forehead. “You’re distracted tonight, aren’t you?”

  “Just tired,” he said. “Barbara reports she’s rented a house on the ridge above Lucy’s farmhouse. It’s within easy walking distance, just above a notorious waterfall.”

  “Ah, and how is Barbara?”

  He shrugged. “Back to her old self.”

  Sidney looked dubious. “Don’t count on it.”

  “She’s worked in my office since she was a college intern. She’s not going to rock the boat again. She lost it for a second, that’s all. It happens. With the pressure we’re under, people lose it every now and then.”

  “Jack, Jack,” Sidney said, incredulous, shaking her head. “The woman’s in love with you.”

  “No, she isn’t. She just got carried away. And, even if she is, what can I do about it? She’s a valuable member of my staff.”

  “Oh, God. You sound as if you’re talking about your favorite pen.”

  “I don’t mean to. Sidney, I’m not going to fire Barbara Allen because she got a little goofy on me. If she becomes a problem, I’ll deal with it.”

  “I’m sure you will. Excuse me for meddling.”

  She was matter of fact, not hurt. Jack smiled. “Meddle away. It’s nice to have someone with your clear eye to talk to.” He sighed; the martini was relaxing him. Or maybe it was just Sidney’s company. “I suppose I should tell Lucy I’m coming. She knows I want to come up for a visit, but she thinks it’s just for a day or two, not the entire month.”